MY USA TODAY COLUMN: What Fuels Trump Derangement Syndrome? Gentry Liberals’ Status Anxiety.

GOOD LORD: An engine dropped out of a B-52 bomber during a training flight on Wednesday.

The youngest B-52 was built in 1962.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1337: The IRS Is The Third Biggest ‘Tax Offender Of 2016’.

CHRIS PLANTE TO TUCKER CARLSON: Journalists Exposed By WikiLeaks To Cover Trump White House.

“I was talking to somebody about this earlier: It is almost like the Soviet Union, but worse. At least in the Soviet Union, there was a penalty for not collborating with the state. These guys do it quite voluntarily. They do it because they are on the team. Harwood is far from alone.

“Glenn Thrush of Politico was caught sending emails to the Clinton people for their prior approval. He called himself in his own email a “hack.” he confessed, lamenting perhaps, that he is a hack…

“He was with Politico, and I’ll have you know he’s no longer with Politico. He’s now with the New York Times. The Times saw this and said they liked the cut of his jib. So they hired him away from the Politico… It is considered to be a big promotion…

“The New York Times saw Glenn Thrush collaborating behind the scenes with the Clinton campaign and they hired him away from the Politico.”

Video at the link.

And I won’t ask you to think of Thrush as a Democratic operative with a byline, because that’s simply what he is.

PROCUREMENT: We CAN Build More Virginia-Class Attack Submarines Faster.

In a special exclusive interview with Scout Warrior, former Navy Director of Undersea Warfare said the Navy and its industrial partners to have the ability to build 2 Virginia-class submarines per year once production of the Ohio Replacement Program nuclear-armed submarines begins in the 2020s.

The current status-quo effort to build two Virginia-Class boat per year, however, will drop to one as construction of the Ohio Replacement Program, or ORP, begins in the early 2020s.

Rear Adm. Charles Richard, prior Director of Undersea Warfare, said in an interview with Scout Warrior last year that the Navy has completed a special analysis of strategic imperatives and industrial base capacity on the issue which has been submitted to Congress for review.

“The new news here is that we have industrial base capacity to go to two Virginias as we go to Ohio. In our report (Navy officials specified this as an internal Navy report), we have an analytic underpinning that this is now a choice that is available to the nation,” , said in the interview several months ago in 2016. “We are working very hard and how can we structure this so that it is something that we can go execute,” Richard said.

Richard was clear that Congressional budget approvals and additional developments will need to happen in order for this plan to formally go forward, but he did emphasize for the first time that the ability to accomplish this was there. The acquisition success of the Virgina-class submarine program, he added, was in large measure one of the key reasons why the ability to build more would be possible.

The Virginia-class boats are a real success story for the Navy. They’re coming in under budget, and ahead of schedule — and are effective as hell. But currently they aren’t being built fast enough to replace retiring Los Angeles-class boats, or to keep up with Russian and Chinese shipbuilding.

HMM: “People who behave like this don’t think they live in a rising superpower that is going to sweep all before it.”

In their quest for a U.S. education, more Chinese families are sending their children to America—and at younger ages.
The number of Chinese students at elementary schools surged from 500 in 2011 to 2,450 in 2015, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Over the same period, the number of Chinese nationals attending secondary schools in the U.S. jumped from 17,914 to 46,028. Those numbers pale compared with the tens of thousands of Chinese students enrolled at U.S. universities, but are expected to soar in the next few years.

“It’s an obvious trend,” said Emily Li, an educational consultant in Irvine, Calif. who specializes in the Chinese market. “When I came in 2004, there were mainly students like me attending graduate school. A few years later, there are college students. Then high-school students. And now there are junior high and elementary school students coming.”

Well, I’m not super-optimistic about China’s medium-term prospects. I hope they’ll manage a transition to a genuinely free country, and without an economic collapse or a civil war. But I don’t actually expect that they’ll manage it smoothly.

RETAIL BLUES: Sears Sells Craftsman Brand, Will Close 150 Stores.

Sears is flipping the Craftsman brand to Stanley Black & Decker Inc., and it will license back the ability to sell Craftsman-branded products royalty-free for 15 years after the deal’s closing. The acquisition gives Stanley the rights to develop, manufacture and sell Craftsman-branded products outside of Sears.

Today just 10% of Craftsman-branded products are sold outside of Sears. Stanley Black & Decker said the deal will help boost Craftsman sales in untapped channels.

“We intend to invest in the brand and rapidly increase sales through these new channels, including retail, industrial, mobile and online,” said Stanley Black & Decker Chief Executive James Loree. Stanley also recently signed a $1.95 billion deal to buy Newell Brands Inc.’s tools business.

A Sears spokesman confirmed the unlimited lifetime warranty on Craftsman hand tools made in the U.S.—“a hallmark of the brand for generations”—will be kept in place.

Craftsman remains what Sears was; I hope Stanley doesn’t mess with it.

SELF-DEFENSE: Pistol Packing Texas Grandma Chases Off Armed Home Invader.

HEH: “What we continue to be shocked by is how out of touch the entire Democratic party appears to be. Had we understood just how clueless they were, the election result might not have been so shocking.”

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: What Fuels Trump Derangement Syndrome? Gentry Liberals’ Status Anxiety.

IT’S BEEN A BAD YEAR FOR THE FBI: FBI never examined hacked DNC servers itself. “According to one intelligence official who spoke to the publication, no U.S. intelligence agency has performed its own forensics analysis on the hacked servers. Instead, the official said, the bureau and other agencies have relied on analysis done by the third-party security firm CrowdStrike, which investigated the breach for the DNC.”

SPYWARS: Donald Trump Plans Revamp of Top U.S. Spy Agency.

The move is prompted by his belief that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has become bloated and politicized, these people said.

The planning comes as Mr. Trump has leveled a series of social-media attacks in recent months and the past few days against U.S. intelligence agencies, dismissing and mocking their assessment that Russia stole emails from Democratic groups and individuals and then provided them to WikiLeaks for publication in an effort to help Mr. Trump win the White House.

One of the people familiar with Mr. Trump’s planning said advisers also are working on a plan to restructure the Central Intelligence Agency, cutting back on staffing at its Virginia headquarters and pushing more people out into field posts around the world. The CIA declined to comment.

“The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world has become completely politicized,” said the individual, who is close to the Trump transition. “They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring the agencies and how they interact.”

The pushback against Trump from the intelligence community began weeks ago — or is this Trump’s pushback against the IC?

ANN ALTHOUSE: Why Jeffrey Toobin is wrong about “How to Stop a Trump Supreme Court Nominee.” “I understand that Toobin has to write these essays for The New Yorker, and I assume he has readers who lap this stuff up, but I consider it deliberately obtuse if not perfectly silly.”

ED MORRISSEY: Seven Tests That Can Keep Republicans from Screwing Up. Everyone in Washington should read this piece.

WELL, A CONTRARY CONCLUSION WOULD MESS WITH THE NARRATIVE:

Four people were taken into custody Wednesday in Chicago after a Facebook Live video appeared to show a young man being tied up, assaulted, and threatened as assailants yelled obscenities about Donald Trump.

In the video posted online Tuesday, a young white man is seen restrained, his mouth covered with duct tape as he sits on the ground. A young black man holding a knife cuts his clothing as well as his scalp.

“Fuck Donald Trump, fuck white people,” the man says.

The four people taken into custody are expected to be charged, Chicago police said at a news conference. Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said the treatment of the young man, who he described as having “mental health challenges,” was disturbing.

Johnson said police were investigating if the incident was a hate crime, but so far he said there was no indication it was motivated by politics or race.

If the races were reversed, there would be near-unanimous media efforts to blame Trump, and they wouldn’t be waiting until all the facts were in to do it.

THIS IS CNN: Study: CNN least trusted among likely voters.

The study, conducted by Rasmussen Reports, said that 75 percent of likely voters tend to watch at least some cable news per week to keep up with politics. Among that group, 42 percent watch Fox News, 35 percent watch CNN, and 19 percent watch MSNBC.

However, the poll said a larger portion of Fox News and MSNBC viewers trust those networks.

Just 33 percent of those who watch CNN said they trusted the information they’re getting, compared to 43 percent for MSNBC. At Fox News, 50 percent said they trust the source.

None of these numbers are super-positive, but then, why should they be?

HACKING: Five things to watch for in Russia hearings.

Here’s one:

What evidence does the IC have that Putin wanted to assist Trump?

The CIA reportedly believes that Russia was explicitly trying to help Trump — raising politically explosive questions about the degree to which it succeeded.

Publicly, the administration has been much more circumspect.

“President Obama and this administration is 100 percent certain in the role that Russia played in trying to sow discord and confusion and getting involved, through the cyber domain, in our electoral process,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told CNN Tuesday.

Reports of the CIA’s stronger assessment are based on anonymous leaks to a number of publications.

The leaks have given ammunition to critics who say the Obama administration is trying to undercut Trump before he takes office on Jan. 20.

“There are real questions about why there have been so many leaks over the last seven or eight weeks from the administration about the motivations or the intentions of Vladimir Putin or other foreign leaders,” Cotton said Tuesday.

While we’re at it, let Senate committee ask about the truth of the information released by Wikileaks, and get that on the record.

SOCIAL JUSTICE MEDIA: 4 arrested in beating broadcast on Facebook Live.

The disturbing 30-minute video shows a man tied up and his mouth covered, cowering in the corner of a room. His attackers laugh and shout “f*ck Donald Trump” and “f*ck white people” as they kick and punch him.

The video shows someone cutting into his scalp with a knife leaving a visibly bald patch.
Police said the victim is an 18-year-old with special needs. Officers found the disoriented young man wandering a Chicago street “in crisis” Tuesday afternoon.

He was so traumatized that it took most of the night for him to calm down to the point that he was able to talk to police, Captain Steven Sesso said.

The suspects, two men and two women, all 18, are in custody awaiting formal charges.

The victim knew at least one of his accused attackers from school, Commander Kevin Duffin said. Though he may have voluntarily gotten into a van with the group, police are considering kidnapping charges.

Because the victim is white and the people in the video are black, police also are investigating whether hate crime charges are appropriate, Duffin said.

“Although they are adults, they’re 18. Kids make stupid decisions — I shouldn’t call them kids, they’re legally adults, but they’re young adults and they make stupid decisions,” Duffin said.

Where did these “kids” learn such hate?

UPDATE: Analysis from Walter Hudson.

BRRR: Earth Cooling At The Fastest Rate On Record.

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CONRAD BLACK: Obama’s Failed Presidency: Trump must try to cope with his predecessor’s disastrous legacy.

The president is correct that the largest issue in the election was the Obama legacy: the 125 percent increase in federal debt while the national work force shrank by 10 percent, the shameful Iran nuclear and sanctions giveaway, the shambles of the “red line” and other flip-flops and miscues all over foreign policy, the haughty disparagement of large sections of the electorate (in which he was almost outdone by Mrs. Clinton), the immigration policy of proudly admitting to the U.S. whomever might be seized by the ambition to enter, and the slavish adherence to the most alarmist versions of the faddish climate apocalypse, whatever the cost in American jobs and the current-account deficit, and without waiting for evidence adequate to justify radical measures.

The president has had a whim of iron, informed by bygone reflexively socialistic pieties, and while he has not been popular and the majority has thought throughout his administration that the fundamental direction of the country was mistaken, about half the people either like him as a public personality or are afraid, because he is not white, to admit that they don’t. He may be, as he often seems, a charming man, but when he has gone and the issue of race is not much involved in assessing his performance, he will be seen to have failed as president, as did, though for somewhat different reasons, and not without some successes, his predecessor, George W. Bush. That is their shared legacy: failure, for four terms. There has never been such a sequence in the country’s history. Which is why, for the first time in the country’s history, a person who has never held a public office or senior military command took over one of the main parties by winning the primaries and went on to win the election: an unprecedented solution to an unprecedentedly prolonged period of presidential failure.

Harsh, but fair.

IRA STOLL: Trump Versus the Bureaucracy: The civilian bureaucracy voted overwhelmingly against Donald Trump. These people can make a lot of trouble for the next president in a lot of ways.

As I’ve noted for years now, that the bureaucracy is a monoculture of Democratic operatives suggests that the laws intended to produce a nonpartisan professional civil service have failed, and need to be dramatically revised.

YOU KNOW, I AGREE WITH THIS STATEMENT: “Our nuclear weapons themselves must in no way be part of any IP connectivity or network enabled in any way. Full stop.”